Friday 27 January 2017

Open Thread


Time for a new one......

33 comments:

  1. How many times do you here on the so called business programme on Radio 4 that Britain cannot hope to do quick trade deals as we have no skilled negotiators as all trade negotiations were carried out by the EU? Well is was said again this morning. Yet no one seems to ask the obvious question. Did Britain have no participation in these trade deals? Was no British person involved at all at any stage? If the answer is "No" then it would be another reason to leave.

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  2. Just transferred from a thread below:

    BBC Reality Check Check Up...

    What could the latest Reality Bend check up relate to?

    Media claims that 25 year olds are 15 year old unaccompanied refugees? Jenny Hill's claim that nearly the whole of Germany was wildly welcoming a million undocumented migrants back in 2015? The Fake News predictions of the OECD, IMF and Treasury about a post Brexit vote recession?

    Well hepdiggety! No - it's an investigation focussed on a Trump claim!

    "The claim: Donald Trump would have won the popular vote in last year's US presidential election had it not been for people voting illegally.

    Reality Check verdict: There is no evidence to support the assertion that at least 2.86 million people voted illegally."

    As usual from BBC Reality Bend, a really sloppy analysis. My comments:

    1. The source of the claim is unclear. There is a quote from Sean Spicer, Trump's press spokesperson, but that is entirely different from the claim under investigation. There is a statement that "the president was reported to have claimed in a closed meeting on Monday that between three and five million unauthorised immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton." However no citation for the BBC's claim is given so it could well be Fake News.

    2. There are nearly 12 million illegal migrants living in the USA according to the Pew Centre. The BBC give no estimate for the overall number. But if we assume that 9 million are adults, that gives ample opportunity for the claim to be true. It would mean just under one in three were registered to vote and voted. If you are an illegal migrant I would think you want to get as much official documentation as you can...getting on the electoral register probably opens a gate to other forms of documentation so there may well be an incentive to register. Then, in this election, you - as an illegal migrant - had a very strong incentive to vote...to stop the candidate who is threatening to deport you and your family.

    3. The Reality Check analysis seems to rely on assertions and recitals of voting laws, as though illegal migrants would not circumvent those. The BBC appears to be expecting us to believe that illegal migrants do not put their names on the electoral register (wouldn't that arouse suspicion?).

    4. While claims supporting Trump's concerns are criticised, the analysis reports uncritically : "The CCES published a newsletter that disputed the findings and said "the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is 0". " Are the BBC really expecting us to believe that the percentage of non-citizen voters is zero?! So desperate are the BBC to bash Trump that they appear to have become detached from reality.

    OVERALL SCORES:

    BBC REALITY BENDING - 95%

    ANALYSIS QUALITY - 6%

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  3. FAKE NEWS
    During her meeting later today with Donald Trump, Theresa May is expected to apologise on behalf of the BBC for the excesses in biased reporting of the recent US Presidential Election and the continuation of an anti-Trump narrative surrounding the Inauguration. With a tear in her eye, she will explain that sadly, our once great British Broadcasting Corporation can be relied upon lately to distort their news reporting to suit their own political agenda. She will say that now, the BBC have a tiger by the tail: Dangerous to hang on to their discredited agenda, but even more dangerous to let go.

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    1. BBC News has teamed up with Cadbury's to produce Flake News on their website, so called because it crumbles as soon as you open it up.

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    2. That'll be Breaking News.

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    3. If you manage to get it all in your mouth without dropping any chocolate crumbs that'll be "despite Brexit" according to the BBC.

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  4. Actually that's not a bad strapline for the BBC News Website:

    "Only the crumbliest flakiest news items."

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    1. Or even: "Only the crumbliest, SNOWflakiest news items!"

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  5. Just an aside. This Week (Presenter, Andrew Neil) had on a nonentity female comedian to lecture us about fake news. At one point she referred to the "fact" that one of the President's guards had "fake hands" in front of him so he could carry a gun under his overcoat. Lol - she'd obviously swallowed this hook, line and sinker. Whilst it's true he held his hands steady in front of him for a long while, there is video of him separating them. So she's been had by a social media meme that she couldn't be bothered to check out! Such as the talents the BBC goes to when wishing to discuss Fake News.

    See about 41.:08 for a daft comments about fake news which is itself fake.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08c38fy/this-week-26012017

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    1. Jeremy Corbyn might quip that she's "the Irony lady after that.

      The Mail has the video:
      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4155480/Was-Trump-s-bodyguard-wearing-prosthetic-hands.html

      Andrew Neil, Alan Johnson and Michael Portillo all laughed when she said it, but on she went, earnestly.

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  6. Could this perhaps be where Trump got his idea of building a wall? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37294187
    Seems that the UK press have conveniently forgotten that whilst Trump has only said about building a wall we are actually doing it. Or is the horrific part just the bit about getting the Mexicans to pay for it?

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    1. To the BBC, any attempt at border control is horrific and racist. The disgusting Mark Mardell once drove around the Arizona/Mexico border trying to catch the authorities in their racism, but found out they asked everybody for ID. He also refused to cover the bigger reason for border control there and in Texas: violent drug gang wars crossing over and disturbing the peace in US border towns.

      Of course, the BBC blames that on lax US gun laws.

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    2. Our walls like our wars are OK. Anyone who says differently is a Putin agent seeking to undermine our beloved CIA - according to the BBC.

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  7. The Beeboids have lost their minds. Any sign of a full 'First 100 Days' live blog yet? Or was that only because BBC racists thought a black man was going to govern differently specifically because of his skin color?

    No gushing over Melania Trump's outfits, while Kim Ghattas and others regularly had comments and features on Michelle Obama's dresses and activities. Again, race-based coverage.

    The BBC's Paul Wood (he of the golden dodgy dossier) is now speculating that Trump will be assassinated or impeached within six months.

    Anthony Zurcher pushing Fake News and left-wing propaganda about voter fraud. To him and all Leftoids, only Republicans talk about voter fraud as an excuse to stop blacks and people who speak Spanish from voting, and 'voter fraud' must always be presented in scare quotes, to prevent you from the crimethink of believing it exists.

    Your license fee hard at work.

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  8. Has anybody bothered to watch the new BBC series about why more money needs to be thrown at the NHS? Then there's the Radio 4 series about the need to improve management culture. No curious timing or anything.

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  9. Classic Laura Kuenssberg acting as if her own views reflect that of the country:

    https://order-order.com/2017/01/27/trump-v-laura-k/

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    1. I felt motivated to see if there is any support the BBC can offer to back this up:

      https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/clarifying_vague_bbcstaff_claims

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    2. Interesting approach, if they accept this as an FOI request rather than a complaint for the Complaints Dept. drones. I'm not sure Q1 fits with an FOI request, or maybe I don't understand the second half of it.

      Q2 is very good - especially considering the last two important events where they claimed to have a finger on the pulse but got both massively wrong - but will probably be denied on the grounds of protected 'journalism'. Or maybe they'll just say shut up and trust the polls, never mind that they got the 2015 election and Brexit badly wrong, not to mention Trump and immigration.

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    3. Tx. Good points. Bit rushed but I find an FOI can move quicker than complaints, even if the result is the same, plus the advantage of being in open forum.

      This is important, as the BBC has for too long been allowed to demand of others things it denies those compelled to pay for it.

      They can either answer, which will be interesting.

      Or they can hit the bunker, which will be damning.

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    1. The sad thing is that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Beeboids really do believe they reflect our views.

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    2. Given the BBC’s unshaken conviction that only they understand the truth behind the news and their mission to “explain” it to the ignorant masses, to believe otherwise would be an admission of failure.

      Of course there are always cases where we not “directed” properly, like Brexit or possibly the last general election, but even the BBC isn’t infallible.

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    3. Given the BBC’s unshaken conviction that only they understand the truth behind the news and their mission to “explain” it to the ignorant masses, to believe otherwise would be an admission of failure.

      Of course there are always cases where we not “directed” properly, like Brexit or possibly the last general election, but even the BBC isn’t infallible.

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    4. That's a very important point, Terry, and one which not enough people recognize. The 'explain the news' attitude was the beginning of the real problems. It's an open invitation for opinion, and the BBC has spent the last couple of decades since Birt trying to claim otherwise.

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    5. If I had £5 billion in my pocket I think I might convince myself I represented very accurately the whole of UK opinion! :)

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    6. Wasn't it Peter Jay (Jim Callaghan's son in law) who started the rot with his "mission to explain"? I doubted it at the time and now I am convinced it is wrong. The role of our big media is a "mission to present" in my view i.e. present the range of views about the truth, making due allowance for weight of opinion.

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    7. 'Range of views, range of views?' Perish the thought!- only one view is acceptable to Beeb Brother, be it on the EU, Scottish independence, Israel, immigration, diversity, Donald Trump, the transgender industry (surgical modification soon to be compulsory), or climate change etc etc. Regular contributors to this site will be deemed guilty of wrongthink and taken to the Beebyanka for re-programming. Those who continue to commit thought-crime will be confined to the cells under Broadcasting House & forced to listen to an endless compilation of Laura Kuenssberg commentaries played at NORMAL VOLUME.

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  12. Everyone should see this extract from the USA and Canada part of the BBC News website.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38768272
    Apart from the anti-Trump rhetoric throughout which we might have come to expect, look at the sentence about Theresa May - and the 'questions asked by the BBC'. This is for their US and Canadian readers. Does our licence fee really fund the broadcast of such biased and negative sentiments?

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    1. Yes, Laura fluffed her lines and the audience laughed - but the 'question' had already been programmed into the BBC narrative - post truth.

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  13. Stella Creasy says on R4 Any Questions, in a diatribe that she can't vote for Article 50 because Theresa May says that we are not negotiating With the EU for access to the single market. The audience claps wildly and Johnathan Dimbleby doesn't even bother to point out that Theresa May said no such thing. It appears that our MPs will be voting against the will of the people in ignorance of the facts. Brilliant.

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    1. The BBC have no objection to fake facts as long as they are anti-Brexit or anti-Trump fake facts.

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  14. Check out James O'Brien sneering at Daniel Hannan and all questions asked come from the perspective that Trump is evil, wrong, dangerous, unsavory. He also pushes the sickening false equivalence of 'refugees' from Syria with Holocaust victims, a meme very popular with the professional Leftie media.

    O'Brien also tells a pro-EU lie, that the UK was a big player in the EU and now is a US sidekick.

    The main goal is obvious: to make Hannan - Brexiter Big Beast - publicly denounce Trump, and it was successful.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdC9i7Bz2dE

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